Investigating the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Eco-driving behavior

Abstract

The outburst of the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the operation of the existing transportation systems, decreasing the total number of trips, as well as the habits of the majority of the travelers. In this paper, the impact of the pandemic on driving behavior and, specifically, on ecological driving is investigated. First, a clustering approach is adopted to identify different driving profiles in a dataset of naturalistic driving data. It was found that there are three discrete profiles, each with its respective characteristics: aggressive, eco and typical. Furthermore, statistical analysis and comparison of the distribution of the trips in the three profiles were conducted in four different time periods: before the lockdowns, during the first lockdown, between the two lockdowns and during the second lockdown. Interestingly, the results indicate that during the above period, the drivers gradually moved to smoother and, thus, safer and more ecological driving behavior.